Conservancies restore elephant migratory routes

The establishment of 26 community-run wildlife conservancies in northern Kenya has created a safe 340-kilometre corridor for hundreds of elephants to roam freely from Mount Kenya to Mount Marsabit.

Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT-Kenya), a wildlife lobby bringing together the conservancies run by people elected from host communities, said that more villages were willing to come together to form conservation zones after they realised such ventures created a ready source of income and pasture.

The trust’s spokesperson, Ms Sophie Harrison, on Thursday welcomed the development, saying the conservancies would greatly help control establishment of settlement schemes, and ensuring elephants and other wild animals thrive.

“Ivory poaching is not the only threat to African elephants across the continent, human settlements equally increase pressure on wildlife habitats. Towns and farmlands are being developed at a rapid rate across wildlife migration routes and elephants are being penalised for breaking fences and destroying crops built along their migration corridors,” she said.

ADEQUATE PASTURES
Ms Harrison said the formation of conservancies in northern Kenya had greatly reversed the global trend that now ensures wild animals which form a flagship attraction for tourism have a home and adequate pastures.

Elephants can now travel from snow-peaked Mt Kenya across vast grass plains and the Chalbi desert to Mt Marsabit, which sits 140km away from the Ethiopian border.

Three community conservancies in Marsabit supported by the French Global Environment Facility, she added, had served as a basis for dialogue among the Gabra, Rendille and Borana. The communities, which had for years engaged in fierce fighting, are finally completing the jigsaw puzzle, she said.

“Songa, Jaldesa and Shurr conservancies form a crescent around Mt Marsabit, providing wildlife with a safe passageway to the Mathews Forest, the Ewaso Nyiro River and to Mt Kenya. The conservancies are turning around a battle zone into a livelihood for families and a habitat for wildlife,” she added.

In an interview, Shurr conservancy manager Ali Mohamed reported that the level of awareness and perception in the community had changed since the establishment of the conservancy.

All communities felt they owned the conservancies thereby reducing conflict.